Federalist Papers

Federalist Papers

Author

History.com Staff

Website Name

History.com

Year Published

2009

Title

Federalist Papers

URL

http://www.history.com/topics/federalist-papers

Access Date

March 31, 2015

Publisher

A+E Networks

Introduction

The Federalist Papers consist of eighty-five letters written to newspapers in the late 1780s to urge ratification of the U.S. Constitution. With the Constitution needing approval from nine of thirteen states, the press was inundated with letters about the controversial document. Celebrated statesmen Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay weighed in with a series of essays under the pseudonym “Publius,” arguing that the proposed system would preserve the Union and empower the federal government to act firmly and coherently in the national interest. These articles, written in the spirit both of propaganda and of logical argument, were published in book form as The Federalist in 1788.

These are a series of eighty-five letters written to newspapers in 1787-1788 by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay, urging ratification of the Constitution.After a new Constitution, intended to replace the ineffectual Articles of Confederation, had been hammered out at the Philadelphia Convention, it was agreed that it would go into effect when nine of the thirteen states had approved it in ratifying conventions. There ensued a nationwide debate over constitutional principles, and the press was inundated with letters condemning or praising the document, among them these articles, signed “Publius.”The three men—chief among them Hamilton, who wrote about two-thirds of the essays—addressed the objections of opponents, who feared a tyrannical central government that would supersede states’ rights and encroach on individual liberties. All strong nationalists, the essayists argued that, most important, the proposed system would preserve the Union, now in danger of breaking apart, and empower the federal government to act firmly and coherently in the national interest. Conflicting economic and political interests would be reconciled through a representative Congress, whose legislation would be subject to presidential veto and judicial review.

This system of checks and balances and the Constitution’s clear delineation of the powers of the federal government—few, limited, and defined, as Madison put it—would protect states’ rights and, as they saw it, individual rights. The ultimate protection of individual liberties had to wait for later passage of the Bill of Rights, for these men, as their arguments made plain, distrusted what Madison called “the superior force of an interested and overbearing majority.” Many of the constitutional provisions they praised were intended precisely to dampen democratic “excesses.”The articles, written in the spirit both of propaganda and of logical argument, probably had little influence on public opinion of the day. Nevertheless, the essays, published in book form as The Federalist in 1788, have through the years been widely read and respected for their masterly analysis and interpretation of the Constitution and the principles upon which the government of the United States was established.